An Offering (while I dig out)

Posted by Kate on May 7th, 2008

As I attempt to dig myself out of the pile of craziness that life has thrown at me in the last few days, I offer you these resources instead of the long post I said I was going to write about blog ads, specifically ads on education blogs. Since I formed a lot of my opinions on the matter based on what I read in these, they’re actually probably worth a bit more than what I was going to write.

Erin Kotecky Vest does an amazing job of describing how each blog is a brand and should be treated as such. My question is, why do educators have such a different viewpoint on ads? Take a look at most of the blogs she links to - they all have ads. In my opinion, the content isn’t diminished by them.

This article details how some bloggers have gone from "mere" bloggers to book authors almost overnight. This article is where I got the idea to poll my community about putting ads on my blog. I’m not in any way in the league of these bloggers, but thought the concept was worthwhile. A quote from the article:

"After turning down earlier offers from advertisers, Moulitsas finally agreed to sell ads in 2004, when his traffic was at its peak because of that year’s highly charged presidential election. But before he made his final decision, the 36-year-old Berkeley, California, resident polled his readers. The ability to interpret the results directly created a built-in safety net against user backlash."

What’s Federated Media Publishing? Their site states:

"At FM, our mission is to support independent website authors and audiences, by connecting them to marketers in an ongoing and robust conversation that feeds everyone involved."

Now, this company deals with the big league bloggers, the ones getting hundreds of thousands of hits each month. What I found really fascinating was that in their 12 categories of blogs they partner with, there is NOT an education category. What does this mean?

Now, I’m not trying to heavily monetize this particular blog, I’d need to spice things up quite a bit more. I am really interested, however, in the complete non-business view of edubloggers as a whole. Is there a potential market for ads on education blogs? I’m in research mode here, not push mode, please don’t take this as an endorsement for edublog marketing. It just makes me wonder why this particular niche is so different than the wider blogging world.

Now back to digging……………

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Marie said,

May 8, 2008 @ 2:33 am

I think it is because it would make educationalists appear as if they have monetary interests and they are supposed to be dedicated to education and nothing else (conflict of interest). I don’t see a problem if they are education related.

Tim (@Twalk) Walker said,

May 8, 2008 @ 7:57 am

I agree with Marie’s comment above, and would expand on it by saying that, in my experience, many educators take a view similar to many clergy members: that their work would be cheapened if it were “about” money.

Intentionally or otherwise, most educators end up making less (or MUCH less) money than they would if they pursued careers in business, the other learned professions, etc. They know this. They are free enough from greed (or financial ambition, or however you want to put it) that it doesn’t keep them from pursuing their careers as teachers, administrators, etc. And if they happen to end up in a job that does pay them handsomely, they and their peers regard it as a special reward for their hard work — even when their supposedly princely income could be matched easily by a 28-year-old sales manager at a mid-sized company.

In this setting — and considering the cultural insularity of the educational profession as a whole — it’s not surprising to me that you get reactions to advertisements that are so very much at odds with the routine practice of other parts of the professional blogosphere. In that bigger setting, it’s well understood that if a blog doesn’t have ads, that’s a choice on the part of the blogger. (John Scalzi provides an example of this.) End of discussion. No moralizing.

My take, coming as someone who has just one finger in the pie of professional education: educators as a group will be well served to *learn* more from what you’re doing here — rather than moralize about it or react stereotypically to it. We can ALL expand our ways of thinking about what the blogosphere means — or can mean — but only when our assumptions are held up to at least gentle questioning.

Kate said,

May 9, 2008 @ 9:57 am

@Marie - thanks for the input - the issue of education and monetary interests is such a loaded one, isn’t it? I find it fascinating!

@Tim - You’ve added a lot to the discussion and I’m grateful for your take on this. Education IS a noble profession and the intensity online matches the dedication offline, so it would make sense that it transfers to the feelings re: advertising and “cheapening” their content. As with most things I write about, I truly do have an open mind and when I ask questions, I trully DO want input - I agree that gentle questioning benefits all. I’m always open to discussion and respectful dissent :-)

Jeff O'Hara said,

May 9, 2008 @ 12:47 pm

Kate, I have been thinking about this topic a lot as of late. We are on the fence with putting ads on edmodo. We want to provide a free service but we have to pay the server bills somehow too. We have some big ideas regarding this too :)

-Jeff

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